Re: Comparing databases

merlin(dot)moncure(at)rcsonline(dot)com says...

> Firebird is a good product. I can't speak for Mr. Treat, but I think
> you will find any misstated facts about said database to be purely
> unintentional.=20=20

Indeed, from the responses, people here seem to be very open and
interested in getting to the truth.

> The story of Interbase is a sad one. Borland really dropped the ball,
> charging 3000$ for its development kit (enterprise Delphi/bcb) PLUS site
> licensing for the database.

You are suggesting royalty free distribution of the server if you have
purchased Delphi/BCB?

Might have been an idea. I have recently purchased "The Complete
Reference SQL" by Groff and Weinberg - it seems good. They have the
histories of several RDBMS products (incl. yours, and some I'd never
heard of) but not even a mention of Interbase or Firebird.

I really really think that Interbase/Firebird is good stuff, and I am
constantly surprised that it doesn't get much exposure.

> Many developers got stung by the BDE and
> vowed never to return to Borland software

Indeed, the BDE seems with hindsight to have been a disaster. They
should have developed custom components per db server - at least the
biggies - maybe the problem was that they were trying to promote their
own db? Though, the Interbase specific components only came out in 3 or
4, and even then they were offered by a third party - there's a wierd
situation at the moment where the IBX (Interbase Express) components are
not developed by Borland themselves, but neither are they Open Source.

> (many of them are probably
> running linux today). During the mid 90's it was surely the most
> advanced platform available for win32 application development. By the
> time Borland switched gears, it was too late and MS sql server took over
> the small/medium business market.

MSDE - royalty free distribution with small(ish) databases - certainly I
think that helped. Plus, the admin tools were always a lot smoother.

> Here in the advocacy, the contributors here almost always try to present
> arguments in a factual, objective light.

I'm not disputing that for a second. It does seem to me though that a
lot of the stuff about Firebird that is being said is downright wrong,
or out of date, or a mix of the two.

> Having programmed in C++
> Builder in the past, I know where you are coming from.

8-)

> Merlin

> p.s. one of my peeves wrt Firebird was the 64k row limit, is that still
> the case?

64k row limit - a row can't have more than 64k of data? I would be
surprised if this were the case for BLOB fields - maybe for the others -
I'll check it out and get back to you.

Paul...

--

plinehan x__AT__x yahoo x__DOT__x com

C++ Builder 5 SP1, Interbase 6.0.1.6 IBX 5.04 W2K Pro

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